The Moment of Truth: That’s the title of the Bowles Simpson National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform December report. Let’s adopt the bipartisan recommendations in this report lock stock and barrel—soon, before our bankers in Asia and Arabia foreclose on our debt.
Ignore the virulent critics of the report from the right and left. We all contributed to this debt via Social Security and Medicare payments, support for massive military spending, gambling on real estate, the rich paying relative minimal tax, lack of fraud enforcement, and coddling of Wall Street.
It is time for us all to take a small hit on our retirement benefits, prudently and responsibly fund our security, conserve our health-care spending, and pay our fair share of taxes.
Let’s not overreact to every nip and tuck of our federal budget. Tell your politicians to support this plan. It is not perfect, but it is way ahead of anything else proposed. The “continual dithering” alternative is America’s economic collapse. Go to fiscalcommission.gov.
This article appears in Mar 17-24, 2011.